Read Online A Novel Seduction by Gwyn Cready - Free Book Online

good.”
    “I’m glad you approve.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I think I’m going to shoot the Brillo boxes now.”
    “No,” she said automatically, visualizing the layout she had in her head. “Too Warhol specific,” she said. “Thecover story is about art as a reflection of self.” She might not know photography, but when she thought of her cover story, she knew exactly how the narrative should flow both verbally and visually, and the Brillo boxes just didn’t fit.
    A flinty look flared in those green eyes. He wasn’t used to having his choices questioned, but the spark was hard to read. Did he like it or not?
    “I’m the photographer.” He drew shoulders higher. She was close enough to feel his heat.
    “I’m the editor.”
    A small growl. “Then what would you like me to do?”
    “Kiss me.” She didn’t know where the courage to say this had come from, but he complied instantly, finding a home for his hands on the small of her back.
    The yeasty bouquet of beer blossomed in her mouth and filled her head, moving the buzz-o-meter on her nerve endings into the red zone.
    “Oh,” she said, pulling away in a dizzying rush of emotions. “That was nice.” Thoroughly flustered, she bent for his bag. “Let’s try the self-portraits,” she said. “They’re upstairs, I think.”
    He fished the bag out of her hand and followed. When she reached the stairs, he caught her arm and turned her.
    The kiss, in his hands, was more demanding, and her knees began to tremble. As always, she knew what she wanted but was afraid she couldn’t get it.
    She ducked again and took refuge on a step, rocking where she sat. “This is fast.”
    He dropped the bag. “You’ll like it fast.”
    “I don’t even know if you’re seeing someone.”
    “I’m not.”
    He ran a finger across her collarbone and she leaned back on her elbows without thinking. She wanted to feel those capable hands on her body. He was three steps below her, looking at her with those emerald eyes.
    “Do you like me or do you want to sleep with me?” she said.
    “
That
is a trick question.” He flicked her top button open, put his hands on her knees and kissed her again.
    Reason was leaving the arena. If there was something she needed to know, she’d better find out while she still had brain cells left to process the information.
    “So, why do you like me?”
    She moved up a step, and so did he, opening another of her buttons in the process.
    “Are you kidding?” he said. “Because you’re a bloody amazing writer, because you have the stones to ask me to work for free and because it’s like you have fireworks going off inside you
all
the time.”
    He slid deeper between her legs and their mouths met hungrily.
    When she caught her breath, she moved up another stair. “So you’re saying you don’t think I’m pretty?”
    “Is this the obstacle course you put every boyfriend through?” he said, loosening another button. “If so, I can see why your track record is spotty. For the record, you’re beautiful—alarmingly so—but I was given to understand that it is ungentlemanly to focus on the superficial.”
    One more step. “It is. It was a test. You passed.”
    He took two buttons as his wreath of laurels. Then he took her blouse.
    She could feel her heart beating but was afraid to look down. He slipped his finger under the clasp that rested between her breasts, and she could see the turbulence in those eyes and feel it in his fingers.
    She undid his buckle, and he undid her bra.
    “Good God,” he whispered.
    Her breasts were high and full, and she was used to men admiring them, but the look on his face went beyond admiration or even desire, and she knew it would be seared into her memory forever. She took his hands, which had fallen useless to his sides, and brought them to the warm flesh. He made a noise deep in his throat, and she found her own hands quaking.
    He cupped her reverentially, then brushed her nipples,